Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr
Paul Thummel was released and rearrested on several occasions. In February 1942 he broke down under questioning and admitted he was a spy. He was imprisoned in the fortress at Terezin (Theresienstadt) under the false name of Dr Paul Tooman. There he remained for three years. In August 1944 he was divorced by his wife Elsa, which was the last time he saw her. In April 1945 he ‘committed suicide’ in Terezin.
Karl Hermann Frank was captured in 1945, tried by the Czechs, found guilty and executed outside Pankrac Prison on 22 May 1946. The whole execution may be found on the internet for those who are inclined that way at http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/05/22/1946-karl-hermann-frank/
It’s only my opinion but he died rather bravely, for what it’s worth.
SS-Standartenführer Dr Walter Jacobi was arrested by the Americans in September 1945. He was executed in Prague on 3 May 1947.
SS-Obergruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt was hanged for war crimes in Poland on 10 March 1952.
SS-Obergruppenführer Karl von Eberstein testified for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. He denied knowledge of and responsibility for Dachau Concentration Camp, which fell under his authority as the Higher SS and Police Leader for Munich. He died in Bavaria on 10 February 1979.
SS-Gruppenführer Konrad Henlein was captured by the Americans and committed suicide in May 1945. However, he may actually have been a spy for the British.
SS-Gruppenführer Dr Hugo Jury committed suicide in May 1945.
SS-Brigadeführer Bernard Voss was hanged in Prague on 4 February 1947.
SS-Standartenführer Dr Hans Ulrich Geschke was most probably killed during the Battle of Budapest in February 1945. He was declared dead in 1959.
SS-Standartenführer Horst Bohme was killed at the Battle of Königsberg in April 1945. Declared dead, 1954.
SS-Sturmbannführer Dr Achim Ploetz. Fate unknown to the author.
Konstantin von Neurath was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Released in 1954, he died aged eighty-three in August 1956.
General Kurt Daluege was hanged by the Czechs in Prague in October 1946.
Lina Heydrich died on 14 August 1985. She always defended her husband’s name.
The portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt remained in the possession of the Austrian State Gallery in Vienna until 2006, when an Austrian court determined that it and three other pictures were the rightful property of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer’s niece, Maria Altmann, to whom he had left them in his will, following his impoverished death in Zurich in November 1945. Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was one of four paintings sold at Christie’s, New York, in November 2006. It fetched eighty-eight million dollars and may be viewed today at the Neue Galerie in New York City.
The author visited the house at Panenske-Brezany in February 2011. It is closed to the public, however, and mostly derelict. Under the old communist government of Czechoslovakia, the house was a secret weapons research facility.
According to a Prague newspaper in March 2011, Heider Heydrich, aged seventy-six, Heydrich’s surviving son, offered to ‘find finances’ for the restoration of the house at PanenskeBrezany. The story caused a furore in the Czech Republic. It is, however, the author’s opinion that the son is not the father and that this once beautiful house is worthy of restoration. I imagine he would like to find the grave of his elder brother.
Philip Kerr, Prague Fatale